


Staying the Course

by lizwuzthere



Series: Post-Predacons Rising [2]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Gen, Post-Predacons Rising (Prime Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-24
Updated: 2016-10-11
Packaged: 2018-03-14 20:50:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3425144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizwuzthere/pseuds/lizwuzthere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p></p><div class="center">
  <p><br/><img/><br/>  </p>
</div>Post-Predacons Rising: The Vehicons working the mines on Earth are surprised when suddenly their communications are knocked out. Rather than succumb to panic, one Vehicon decides to venture out into the world of humans to try and find what became of his friend in another mine. Unfortunately, he knows nothing about navigating his way around Earth, so he might need a little help from one of the locals.
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Siadea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siadea/gifts).



> I'm so disappointed in myself for not coming up with a pun name to use as a title.. I'll keep at it and see if I can't come up with something better. For now, though please enjoy yet ANOTHER Vehicon-centric story from me. I would apologize for bringing yet another Vehicon story into this world but, gosh darnit, I just can't bring myself to regret it :Y
> 
> You can read all my Vehicon headcanons over here in this [Handy Dandy Headcanon Post on Vehicon Organization](http://lizwuzthere.tumblr.com/post/37019561808/cut-below-for-long-winded-vehicon-organization)  
> It's not necessary to understand this story, though.

The shift change came and went and still there was nothing.

For the first few sub-cycles there was some worried chatter through the ranks, but by the time half the cycle was gone, some of the crew were on the brink of hysteria. Shift change was never this late. And all the alerts and messages sent out received no response. Something must have happened to the ship. It would have to be something big to knock out the groundbridges _and_ communications.

ST-0 2, also known as Stanley, was one of the few who had gone into a full panic attack early on , so his work partner ST-03, or Steve as he was affectionately known as, found himself rather occupied trying to ease his nerves. Honestly, Steve was actually a bit thankful for the distraction. He found that calming someone else down had a sort of calming effect itself. Despite him not actually believing that “ M aybe there was a power failure!”  and “ It all could just be a big misunderstanding.  T hey're probably trying to reach us right now! " or " It's probably just some faulty tech; the other mines are fine, I'm sure.” It still helped to say it out loud.

It worked well enough for Stanley too, and he appeared to be se ttling down again after a particularly troubling episode. Once he'd helped Stanley sit on the edge of their mining drill, Steve let out a quiet  vent  and took a look around at the other members of the mining crew. Everyone had given up on mining by this point; they were all far too anxious to be thinking about work. Besides, their current assignment was a rather small mine, so there were only two  units of five  miners and one unit of ten soldiers working security. That meant there was not much work to be done in the first place.

The only ones who had any real urgency about them were the three squad leaders all huddled around the communication hub. The console only consisted of a single vid screen and a tiny satellite connection, but it was enough for what they needed. Or at least it used to be. It wasn't exactly doing the trick at the moment.

Steve looked back at Stanley, gesturing over to the unit leaders. "I should see if they've made any progress," he said, "You gonna be alright for a klik?"

Stanley just gave a short nod and rested his helm in his servos. Steve took that as permission to step away, and started towards the hub. As he got closer he could just make out the frustrated back and forth of the officers. It sounded like they were arguing about whether or not they should leave the mine. When they saw him approaching, though, they fell silent. He stopped a few yards from them, pausing to give them the opportunity to speak first.

“What do you want?” FR-01 put his servos on his hips impatiently as he glared down at Steve. He was the leader of the squad of soldiers, so technically he was the head of security for the mine. Also, he wasn't exactly known for being the nicest mech out there.

“I was just wondering if there's any news.” Steve replied, careful to keep his tone respectful.

“Nothing yet, ST-03.” ST-01 spoke this time. Being the leader of Steve's own unit, she was a bit more friendly. “Try not to worry. We'll let everyone know when there are any developments, I promise.” He could hear the strain in her vocalizer. She was only just keeping it together.

“Of course...” Steve shifted his weight back and forth for just a moment before continuing. “But, uh... there hasn't been any contact from any other mines, has there? If we could just get word out to some of them-”

“We're handling this!” FR-01 cut him off, his wings flaring out behind him angrily. “Don't tell us how to do our jobs.”

Steve just gave a short nod and turned away, hurrying back towards his station and Stanley. Before he could get very far he felt a familiar EM field flare up beside him.

“That probably didn't go as planned, huh?”

Steve looked up at FR-04 as he fell into step next to him. FR-04 was one of the few soldiers who didn't mind palling around with the miners, and in fact, seemed to genuinely enjoy Steve's company. Maybe even as much as Steve enjoyed his. He had even let Steve give him a human designation even though it was a game only the miners played. He'd decided on Frank.

Frank gave Steve a quick nudge with his elbow as they approached the drill where Stanley was still hiding his face away in his servos. “Sorry about FR-01.” he said, “If it helps at all, he's almost as tough on his own soldiers as he is on the working class 'Cons.”

“That's not what's bothering me.” Steve glanced back over at the three unit leaders. FR-01 was now fervently typing on the console while the other two stood back. “I'm worried about the other mines. We're small here, but some of the bigger ones...”

“Oh yeah... your friend works in that big one way down in the mountains, right?” Frank nodded in understanding. “Well... they're probably alright. They have better equipment there, anyway. They might have actually been able to contact someone.”

“That's what concerns me.” Steve lowered his vocalizer, glancing over at Stanley to be sure he wasn't listening. “Think about it, if something _did_ happen to the Nemesis, then who else could be getting the communications sent to it?”

Frank hesitated in answering for a moment, then said quietly, “The Autobots. Or... maybe even the humans?”

“The only humans who could intercept our transmissions are the ones _working with_ the Autobots.” Steve vented heavily and turned his gaze down, staring intently at the rock floor of the cavern. “Rodrigo is in that mine. And it's the biggest one on this continent at least... And we've all seen what they do to Decepticon mines. They take what they want and then blow the rest up! ...I'm worried about him.”

“Did they say if they're able to contact other mines?”

“I don't know. FR-01 didn't answer, he just told me to frag off. In not so many words.”

“I could ask for you. I hate to say so, but he's much more likely to listen if it's from another soldier.”

Steve looked up at FR-01 again and saw he was angrily rapping on the satellite attached to the side of the screen, trying to get it to work. When that did nothing, he gave a violent kick to the console itself which made the two miners spring forward to stop him from doing it again. As he watched them struggle, Steve shook his helm. No, FR-01 was clearly at the end of his patience, and he didn't need Frank getting himself in trouble over Steve's paranoia.

“Come on, let's just... come on.” Steve turned away and stepped up onto the drill to sit next to Stanley. Frank let out a quiet vent but followed suit without complaint.

Another few sub-cycles rolled by without any notable incidents. Although SP-03 did come over and produce a pack of playing cards she'd smuggled down to the mines. She brought along SP-02 and SP-04 and they had all started up a game of Praxus Fold 'Em by betting the crystal fragments in their mine carts. Under any other circumstances that probably would have earned them all a decacycle of refueling on dregs, but at the moment, the powers-that-be were a bit too occupied to care. By the fifth round it had started to get a little tiresome, but none of them wanted to stop. That would mean sitting around doing nothing but wait, and they couldn't bear any more of that.  Finally, just as Frank was about to lose his third game in a row, (the poor slagger was just a terrible liar) they heard SP-01 call for everyone's attention.

All the optics in the mine flew to the foreman as she stepped out into the center of the cavern to address the crew. She paused to allow a pair of recharging mechs to be roused by their comrade, then spoke again, louder this time so every audio receptor would pick her up.

“Seeing how we are still unable to establish contact with the Nemesis, we're going to start distributing rations from the mine's stock.” she said, nodding her helm towards the stacked energon cubes in storage a ways behind her. “However, we... don't know how long we'll be down here. So portions are going to be halved.”

There were some irritated groans and grumbles from a few mechs, but for the most part they remained silent. If they were going to start handing out energon, then that just confirmed everyone's worst fear: they were on their own. And the second part was even worse, because if they were getting half rations, that meant they had no idea how long they would be stuck there.

“Shouldn't we do something?” a voice chimed in from the other side of the mine. One of the soldiers was looking to FR-01, standing just behind SP-01. “If we don't know when help is coming, maybe we should send someone out to _look_ for help...”

“No one is going anywhere!” FR-01 shot a fierce glare over at the soldier who quickly stepped back, wings lowered. “The signal from the mine's communication hub is far stronger than any of our personal comms; if we were to leave, we would have no chance of picking up a signal from the Nemesis. So you're all to stay put until we reestablish contact. And we _will_ reestablish contact! Is that clear?”

A quiet murmur of acknowledgement rumbled through the ranks. Then, at SP-01's command, they all slowly got up and filed forward to claim their half energon cubes. If morale had been low before it was at rock bottom by now. There was hardly a vent or whirr to be heard through out the mine as everyone shuffled around back to their stations to drink their fuel. Steve was the last of the mechs from their card game to circle back around. The others were sitting solemnly, masks off, as they sipped silently from the cubes. He noticed Stanley was shaking again too.

Steve sat down next to Frank on the side of the drill, turned away from the others. “'I can't just sit here not knowing what's going on out there...” he grumbled, keeping his optics down on the plastic lining of his cube. “If something did happen- if the Autobots are going after the mines next, then they'll start at the bigger ones. If Rodrigo-”

“Steve...” Frank interrupted him, but when he didn't offer anything further, Steve looked up and met his optics. With his mask off, it was easy to see the worry in his expression. “I know what you're thinking.” he continued at last, “And it's... well, it's not a good idea.”

“You don't know what I'm thinking!”

Frank lowered his vocalizer further, “You're thinking of going to find Rodrigo's mine yourself.”

Steve quickly pulled his optics off Frank and locked them on his cube again as he shifted uncomfortably. “I'm sorry, I just... I have to know if my friend is alright.” he mumbled, “And who knows? Maybe they're not in trouble- maybe they have some answers.”

There was a long silence between them as Steve refused to meet Frank's gaze. “You know, I won't be able to come with you.” he finally said. “My assignment here... it's my duty to protect this mine and all the workers. I can't abandon my post.”

“I know.” Steve looked up again. “I would never ask you to do that.”

“Then you'll be on your own out there on that weird, organic planet. You won't even have the Nemesis to patch into for directions or coordinates.”

“I _know._ ” Steve's grip on his cube tightened, the plastic giving a quiet squeak under the strain. “I have to try, though. I just have to.”

After letting out a resigned vent, there was a quiet click as Frank reset his mask over his face. “Slag that stubborn attitude of yours...” Then he reached over and took the energon cube out of Steve's servos. Steve didn't protest, he just watched curiously as Frank poured the untouched contents of his own cube into Steve's, filling it to the brim.

“You're going to need this more than me.” he said, handing the cube back to his friend. “I'll create a distraction. You slip out while they're not looking.”

“Frank... you don't have to-”

“I want to help. And this is the only way I can... so get going already!”

Steve hesitated, glancing over at the other members of their group, still huddled over their cubes with their backs facing them. “Will you watch out for Stanley while I'm gone?”

“Of course.”

It was another minute before Steve got up, both his servos clenched around the energon cube. Frank stood up beside him and he felt a heavy servo squeeze his shoulder plating tightly. He thought perhaps he should say something, that maybe this moment was important, but it was gone an instant later and Frank was hurrying off towards the center of the cavern, calling out for SP-01.

Steve didn't stick around to see what sort of distraction Frank had in mind, he turned and quietly slipped past the other Vehicons and towards the opening leading to the cavern's entrance. There was a loud crash and some shouting behind him, but he refused to look back and instead he rounded the corner into the tunnel. The light up ahead was beginning to look less artificial. Steve picked up the pace a bit, and turning around one last curve, he finally saw the opening up ahead.

He stopped, hesitating as he stared up into the blinding natural light. Steve had never been on the planet outside a mine before. For anyone else, this realization might have been cause for further consideration on the sense behind this plan to save their friend. Except, Steve had already made up his mind. He was doing the right thing by leaving, even if the higher-ups wouldn't think so. He was not going to sit around and wait for things to happen. Without wasting another moment, he sprinted forward into the outside world, ready to meet whatever it had in store for him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts and criticisms are encouraged and appreciated!

That single energon cube wasn't lasting as long as Steve hoped it would.  What made it worse was  that he had only a vague sense of where he was supposed to be going, so he had no idea how he  _ought_ to be rationing the fuel. 

Not to mention , the foliage was all green and soft and it all looked exactly the same!  He couldn't  keep track of where he was when there were no landmarks .

Well, at the very least,  he knew the coordinates his mine was at, and he knew the coordinates of Rodrigo's mine. Logically, if he just kept going down and then left for as many kliks as the difference between those two numbers, he'd get in the general area eventually. It was only a matter of how many kliks each of these Earth coordinates happened to be, and he wasn't exactly sure how that converted. That was okay though, he would figure it out as he went. He just had to keep moving for now.

After the first few kliks, he'd decided it was too difficult to maneuver through all the plant life in his vehicle mode. Also , the shorter ones kept getting caught in his treads when he drove over them. So rather than deal with that, he had resigned himself to walking. Unfortunately, the terrain was rather steep and rocky at times as he headed down, so it was slow going. 

After climbing down a particularly crumbly bit of rock, he finally noticed something different up ahead. He hurried forward and finally stopped on  what appeared to be  a path made out of black tar. 

This must've been one of the humans' roads. There were some yellow lines marking the center of it and a metal guardrail on the opposite side. It was the only metal structure he'd seen so far, so it must've been humans.

Steve stomped his heel on  the road to get a feel for it. It was definitely softer than the rocks he'd been traveling on  before . Taking a moment to vent a bit, he stepped up to the side of the road with the guardrail. The ground took a sharp turn downwards from there, and it didn't look travel-friendly… So much for going straight the whole way.

Looking down at the road under his feet again, Steve vented quietly as he thought about what to do. Mostly, he wanted to take a chance and travel down this human path. It looked a lot easier, and  this way  he could travel in vehicle mode. However, he wouldn’t know what to do if he ran into one of the humans. He knew next to nothing about them, and he didn’t really want to have to worry about them. Besides that, he had no idea where this road even led to!

However, as he made one last glance over at the guardrail, a small rock came loose from the road. He watched it bounce once off the incline and then fall straight down. And it fell for  _a while_ . That made up his mind. He wasn't stupid; going down this cliff was a bad idea. He'd just have to adjust his plan a little bit... not that it was much of a plan to begin with. Transforming into vehicle mode, Steve started down the road. 

He was glad he made this choice almost immediately. The road felt so much nicer on his treads than that awful Earth vegetation had. It wasn’t smooth like the metal you might have found on a Cybertronian street, but maybe the humans preferred to use organic building materials, being organic themselves. He actually had no idea; they barely learned anything about the humans except to stay out of their sight. Anyway, he was just glad to be off that natural ground.

Now he just had to decide where to go from here. He could just follow the road as far as it went, but he didn’t want to get too far off course. Although, it didn’t seem like he had much of a choice at this point. Well he did, but he really didn’t want to travel on that green stuff again.

As he continued to roll along, he started wondering more about things the humans had built. He knew they had cities, and they had interconnected network systems, so maybe if he got close enough to one he could pick up one of their wireless signals on his comm and figure out where he was. He might even be able to see how far he had to go. Oh, and directions. Directions would definitely help. He just wasn’t sure how primitive their technology would be. It was a little risky to make a plan based on using it if he didn’t know what it was capable of.

As he pondered about the humans and whether or not they would be of any help, he didn’t notice that there was an intersection in the road up ahead. Nor did he notice the red sign with big letters declaring “STOP.”

So rather than slow down, the mech went barreling through the intersection at top speed. He might not even have noticed the mistake if it weren’t for the other car that was also trying to go through the intersection. The car crashed right into him and Steve was sent skidding off the road with a blue car indented into his left side!

His processor was hazy for a little bit after the initial impact, and he wasn't  even s ure what happened for a minute or so . Slag, did it hurt though! At last, he was jolted from his stupor at the sound of something slamming shut and a voice yelling. It took him a moment more, but once he regained his focus he realized there was a human approaching him! An actual, real, organic human! He had never seen one up close before. He had no idea what to do!

His first instinct was to remain perfectly still so as not to arouse suspicion, just like he'd been taught. It was a little late for that, unfortunately. This human already had him right in its crosshairs. Assuming it had crosshairs; Steve didn’t actually know what kind of built-in weaponry they had…

It looked like he'd have to resort to the second thing they'd been taught: squish any humans who got too close.

He didn't really want to, but that was what they'd been taught, and this one was _definitely_ too close. It was standing right next to him and rapping on his side like it was trying to get his attention. It was actually a little painful since that was the panel that had just been smashed in! If he was going to squish this thing, he’d better do it quick while it still didn’t suspect anything.

He was just about to transform when he heard what the human was saying. He hadn’t been paying attention before, but now he noticed that it was asking if he was alright. Actually not _him_ , it was asking if the human it thought was inside him was alright, but all the same, at least it was concerned. It felt bad about hitting him… It was making him feel a little bad about wanting to squash the thing.

Then he thought of something else: maybe instead of killing it, he could use it! After all, the human would know where the roads on its own planet led, right? It might be able to lead him to the coordinates where Rodrigo’s mine was… or at the very least give him some directions. This plan sounded a lot more pleasant than squishing the thing. Also, if it turned sour later on he could always go back to that first plan.

It was now circling around the front of the car, presumably to try his other not-smashed-in door, so Steve took the opportunity to inch forward suddenly, scaring the human and making it fall over with a surprised shout.

“Quit tappin’ all over me, I’m fine!” he said.

After staring at him for more time than was really comfortable, it spoke up again. “That car… it… _talks_.” It seemed to be talking more to itself than Steve, but he responded anyway.

“Of course I talk. I’m not just some car. I’m a Decepticon!”

“Decepti…? What?” The human stood up finally, though a bit shakily, and circled back around to its car. “I mean, you don’t look like a regular car. Are you some kinda military vehicle?”

Now _that_ was funny. If this human thought his mining alt mode looked like a soldiers’ he couldn’t imagine what he’d think of a real one like Frank. He kept his amusement to himself, though. The human probably wouldn’t get the joke, anyway.

“I’m not military, I’m a miner. My name’s Steve.”

“Steve?”

“You got a problem with that?”

“No…” it glanced down at his crushed paneling again. “And… you’re kinda dented up, but are you gonna be okay?”

Steve ruffled his plating a bit. It was sore, but a human car wouldn’t be able to do too much damage to him, so he was sure there was no internal damage. “Yeah, I’ll be okay.”

“Good.” The human nodded, but then its chassis puffed up a bit and suddenly it started yelling. “What the HELL is your problem, Steve?!!”

Now it was Steve’s turn to be startled. He hadn’t expected the thing to get angry after he’d already revealed himself as a Decepticon. It looked back to the other car, pointing at the destroyed front end.

“My car’s totaled! Why the hell did you go through that stop sign? I had the right of way.”

“Right of-? What are you talking about?”

“You’re supposed to _stop_ at a stop sign! Who builds a talking, self-driving car that doesn’t know how to follow simple traffic rules?!” The human reached into a pocket on its brown coat and pulled out a small rectangular box and pointed it where the cars met. “I don’t know who you belong to, but I hope they have good insurance.”

Steve slammed on the reverse and tore away from the wreckage, scraping his side paneling painfully as he did.

“HEY! Where do you think you’re going?!”

“I don’t _belong_ to anybody, human!” Steve revved his engine angrily as the human ran up to him again.

“Oh yeah? Then who’s gonna pay to get my car fixed? _You?_ ”

“I don’t care about your car. I’m on an important mission.”

“So you _are_ military, then? Great! I’m never gonna get the government to pay for damages- those buncha crooks...”

“Look, I told you I’m not military! And I have nothing to do with your human government,” Steve insisted, “and I… I need your help with my mission.”

“Wait, what?” the human’s demeanor changed suddenly, “Did you say you need my help?”

“I’m trying to get somewhere. I’ve got a set of coordinates but I don’t know how to get to them. All my communications haven’t been working since…” Steve paused, trying to decide just how much he should be telling his human. “Uh… well, I could use some help is all.”

The human tiled his helm, looking up at Steve curiously. “What even are you?” it started running one of its servos through the long, black hair on its helm. “You talk just like a person… Is there some schmuck on a phone miles away who’s controlling you just to mess with me?”

“Are you going to help me or not?”

“Not until you tell me what you actually are!”

“I already told you what I am! I’m a Decepticon.”

“That word means nothing! What even is a Decepticon?”

“Well, it’s… it’s a…” Steve was starting to get frustrated with this human. He’d already somewhat revealed himself now, if it would make the thing help him, he might as well show it his root mode. Rolling backwards a bit so as not to catch the human up in his plates, he transformed. Once he had both pedes on the ground again, he looked down to gage the human’s reaction. To say it was shocked would be an understatement.

Steve knelt down to get closer; it just felt like that was the polite thing to do now that he was so much taller. “ _I’m_ a Decepticon.” Steve stated firmly, “So now that you know what I am, are you going to help me or not?”

The human just continued to stare up at him with that dumbfounded look for another minute longer. Finally, once it regained enough composure to close its mouth, it looked him over once more and gave a short nod.

“Okay. My name’s Raoul… So... where is it you’re going exactly?”

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gotta be honest, I didn't do a whole lot of proof reading on this. I'd appreciate it if you guys would let me know if you find mistakes so I can correct them. :Y
> 
> Thoughts and criticisms are encouraged and appreciated!

“OW! Primus, take it easy with that thing, would ya?!”

Steve quickly pulled his arm away from Raoul, rubbing fervently at the dented plating. “I’m not like your sparkless Earth cars. I DO feel pain.”

The Vehicon was sitting by the side of the road just next to the human’s wrecked Earth car. Once he had explained a bit more about himself, Raoul had graciously offered to fix his arm, but Steve was starting to regret accepting the help. The human’s idea of repairs involved a lot more forceful prodding with sharp tools than he was used to.

“Sorry.” Raoul shrugged his shoulders, lowering the crowbar he had in his hands. “But I mean… I’m not exactly sure how gentle I should be. I’ve only got experience fixing _Earth_ cars, not weird alien-slash-robot cars.”

The Vehicon let out an offended huff at this. “Oh I see. So, you’re the one made out of carbon, but I’m the weird one?  _That_ makes sense!”

“Well you’re on my planet, man. So _yeah_.” Raoul bent over to rifle through the red toolbox at his feet. “Everything alive around here is made of carbon. So until the tables are turned and I’m on _your_ planet, it means you’re the weird one.” He paused sifting through his tools to glance up at the Vehicon. “And for the record, I'm _not_ okay with being abducted to an alien planet! I got places to be and stuff...”

Steve let out a quiet vent as Raoul turned back to his tools. “Nothing to worry about there... _We're_ not even able to go back...” He grumbled, mostly just to himself. Raoul didn’t seem to hear him, or at least decided not to respond. After a minute went by he finally stood up straight again.

“Ah! Here we go!” he held up a device that looked like some sort of vice with a a suction cup in the center. “This’ll fix you up no problem!”

Steve leaned away uneasily as he eyed the tool. “What is that thing?”

“It’s a dent puller.” Raoul said quickly. Then he held out his hand for Steve’s. “Ok, lemme see your arm.”

Steve was about to do as the human said, but he visibly hesitated. “Uh… is this gonna hurt?”

“I honestly don’t know.” Raoul said, “Never used it on something that could feel pain before …If you want I could take off the whole plate first and then pound out the dents.”

“NO.” Steve was very quick with his response. “Just... just do it quick, okay?”

“Come on, it could be worse.” Raoul pointed the tool in his hand over at his own car. “I mean, it’s not like your whole front is smashed up. Imagine the kind of whining my car would be doing if _it_ was alive!”

“Wait a second-“ Steve suddenly yanked his arm away from the human. “Are you hurting me on purpose? Is this revenge for breaking your car or something?!”

“What? _No_!” Raoul glared up at the Vehicon, lowering the tool in his hand. “Just because I’m mad you trashed my car doesn’t mean I’d do something nasty like that.”

“So you _are_ mad!”

“You focused on the wrong part of that sentence.” Raoul crossed his arms across his chest. “Look, I know this sucks, but sometimes we just gotta do things that suck because we don't have any other choice. That's just how the world is. So quit being a baby and let me do what I have to, already!”

Steve grumbled something under his breath but then lowered his arm again for Raoul. The human paused for a moment to glare up at the Vehicon, but then reached forward to get to work. He poked the end of the suction cup onto the dent in the middle and pushed until it was flat against the panelling. Then he fit the crossbar attachment over it. It was at that point Steve decided to look away.. He wasn't sure he wanted to watch what was going to happen next. He couldn't see what exactly Raoul was doing, but the pressure on his arm steadily grew worse and worse, and right when he thought he couldn't take much more, there was a loud POP!

Steve wrenched his arm away from Raoul with a shout and the dent puller went clattering to the ground. “FRAG!” he cried, cradling his arm. “That fraggin' _hurts_!”

“But hey, at least it worked!” Raoul bent over to pick up his tool, “Your arm's looking way better now.”

Steve pulled his arm out of the protective grip he had on it to look down at the damage. Raoul was right, the smashed in panelling had been pulled out almost all the way to its original shape. It was still scratched and a little rough looking, but it was certainly an improvement.

“Yeah, it is...” he agreed, rubbing a servo along the panel. “Thanks for your help.”

“Sure thing, pal.” Raoul gave the dent puller a little twirl before stashing it back in his tool box. He then picked up the box and stepped over towards his own car. “Too bad there's no easy fix for my own ride...”

Steve looked over at the car as well. As far as function went, it looked like it could still run, but the paneling on the front end was hanging off, so that would get in the way. So it couldn’t technically drive, but it wasn’t completely trashed.

“Well... sorry again about your car.” Steve transformed to his vehicle mode. “But if you could give me directions, I'll be on my way.”

Raoul spun back around, “Wait, _what?!_ ” he shouted, “You're seriously gonna leave me stranded out here? With a car that _you_ wrecked, by the way!”

Steve rolled away just slightly. “What else am I supposed to do?” he grumbled, “I can't exactly take you with me. I don't have a cockpit or anything for you to sit in.”

“Maybe not, but you're not really in a position to go running off by yourself, either.” Raoul pointed out, “Let's say I give you these directions, but how are you supposed to know what routes are where? What if you miss a turn and get lost again? Then what?”

“I'd figure something out!”

“Don't be stupid!” Raoul placed his toolbox down next to him and knelt to inspect his car. “Just sit tight for a bit, okay? I'll see if I can get my own car moving, and then I'll drive along with you.”

Steve's engine rumbled irritably, “No!” he growled, “I have to get to Rodrigo's mine as fast as I can, I don't have time to sit around and do nothing! That's why I left my own mine!”

Raoul appeared to pause for a second when Steve's tone became angry, but he quickly turned back to his car, noticeably keeping his gaze off the Vehicon. “Well tough break. It's like I said, sometimes we just don't have a choice.”

After a minute of silence, Steve finally rolled off to the side of the road and sat still. Raoul continued to work on his car, ignoring the sulking Decepticon behind him. The silence stretched for quite awhile, the only noise coming from Raoul's work.

While Steve sat quietly on the grass, feeling the Earth vegetation stick uncomfortably to his treads, another thought crossed his processor. He transformed back to his root mode and, still sitting on the grass, finally spoke up.

“Hey so… those coordinates I gave you? How far away are those exactly?” he asked, looking back to Raoul.

“Look even if it _was_ close, which it's not, you still shouldn’t be driving around out here all by yourself.” Raoul replied without looking up. “If someone catches you, y'know someone who's not _me_ , then you could find yourself in some serious trouble.”

“No, what I mean is… well, I technically turn into mining equipment. So I’m not very fast. If it _is_ far, it’ll take me way too long to get there.”

“Yeah, well there’s not much you can do about that.” Raoul shrugged. “You gotta deal with the cards you’re dealt sometimes.”

Steve's gaze traced over the car in front of him, “Maybe I don't.” Steve stood up and circled around the car. “I’ve got an idea that’ll get me there way faster, and would let you ride along too. It's just...”

Raoul followed him around, not looking especially comfortable with the way Steve was eyeing his car. “What are you planning?”

Steve crouched down in front of the car, taking ahold of the dangling panel on the front end. “I mean, it shouldn’t matter that it’s dinged up… all the parts are still technically in place.” He was mostly talking to himself it seemed. “I’m more worried that I don’t have the right components. I’ve never tried it without being pre-formatted first…”

“Okay you’ve lost me.” Raoul stepped forward, taking ahold of Steve’s servo and pulling it away from his car. “Quit poking at my car though, it’s banged up enough as it is!”

As Raoul moved towards him, however, Steve stood upright and stepped away. “This might take a little while, but… well,  _hopefully_ it’ll work.”

“Man, you're not makin' any sense. Could you just- WHOA!”

Raoul leapt back suddenly as Steve's visor flashed green, a beam of light shooting from it and quickly scanning the car up and down. A moment later, the Vehicon seemed to crumple in on himself, his gears and inner metal shifting, the outer plating reshaping, and even the rubber of his treads was slowly changing. A few minutes went by like this, until at last, all his parts and pieces came together into one final shape: a purple and black replica of Raoul's car, but fortunately, minus the damage.

“Unngghh...” Steve groaned as he shifted his new round tires around. “That was... not especially fun. But I think it worked.” He then turned his wheels to spin around and face Raoul again.

While Steve transformed, Raoul had taken up a seat on the hood of his own damaged car and was staring on with one hand covering his gaping mouth. His whole expression was a mixture of shock and a little bit of horror.

“So, um,” he began, uncovering his mouth, “Is this something you Decepticons do a lot?”

“No, not a lot.” Steve replied, rolling forward a bit. “Only when we have to. And it's actually a lot safer to get pre-formatted for an alt-mode before you scan one. A lot can go wrong if you scan a vehicle you're not compatible with.”

“Not compatible?”

“Yeah, like if I were to try and scan a fighter jet or something.” Steve explained, “I'm not a flier, so it would fail... and it is _not_ good when a scan fails. Sometimes you've gotta get medics involved and stuff.”

“How did you know it would work _this_ time?”

“I... didn't? Honestly, I was a little worried. It's a bit bigger than my usual vehicle type, and I was gambling a bit that my treads would be able to convert to tires...” Steve's new mirrors flicked up and down in what might have constituted a shrug, “But I had to give it a shot... Like I said, I can't just sit here and do nothing.”

Raoul stared on for a moment longer before shaking his head and standing upright. “You know there's a point where bravery turns to idiocy, right?” he had a smile on his face, despite his words. Without waiting for a reply, he hurried over to the trunk of his own car and popped it open, pulling out a small duffle bag. “Well, let's get going, then.”

Steve transformed and allowed Raoul to put the bag and his toolbox in his new passenger seat. As Raoul circled around to the other door, he asked, “What about _your_ car?”

“It's fine. I'll call for a tow while we're on the way.” Raoul dropped into Steve's seat, taking ahold of his steering wheel. Having something sit inside him was kind of a new sensation. It was a little weird, but Raoul didn't seem to think it was, so he said nothing.

“Besides, we're in a rush, aren't we?” Raoul continued, “You've got places to be, and so do I.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to get this up sooner, but this chapter got away from me :U It's a bit longer than intended, but oh well.
> 
> Thoughts and criticisms are encouraged and appreciated!

Steve had never had a fast alt mode before. Being a miner, he was used to puttering along on treads or at the most some large, burly wheels. So for him, speeding along on these soft Earth roads in a new mode was actually somewhat of a thrill. He would have enjoyed it a lot more if Raoul didn’t insist on keeping his fleshy, organic hands on his new steering wheel.

“I can drive myself, you know. You don’t have to keep… _touching_ me.”

“Hey man, no offense, but you’re the one who ran the stop sign before.” Raoul sneered down at Steve’s dashboard looking very smug. “So until you get an Earth driver’s license, I’ll do the actual driving around here.”

Steve grumbled barely audible scoff through his vents but gave no other response. The human had a point; Steve didn’t actually know what sort of rules they had about driving on this planet. It was probably better if Raoul helped him along. He didn’t have to like it, of course.

Some time passed like this, and they drove along the wooded road in a somewhat awkward silence. Steve wasn't a huge fan of how quiet it had gotten since it gave him too much time to think about his predicament and worry for his friend, but he also didn't really like the idea of having to talk to the human. He couldn't think of anything to say. And he certainly didn't want Raoul asking more questions about him or the inner workings of the Decepticons... If he got back in contact with the 'Cons, or rather _when_ he did, he didn't want to explain how he had spilled his guts to some random human.

He wouldn't have to suffer much longer, though; it seemed as though Raoul couldn't stand the silence either. After a long, painful sounding sigh, Raoul loosened his grip on Steve's steering wheel slightly.

“I shoulda brought the CDs from that car...” he grumbled, “We still got hours to go, and I'm dyin' of boredom here.”

“What's a CD?” Steve asked. This was good. If they could talk about Earth things rather than Cybertronian things it would work out a lot better for him.

“It's a flat sorta disc that plays music.” Raoul looked down again. “In fact, if I'd taken them, they'd go in right about... here.” he pointed to a slot in Steve's dashboard.

“Whoa! You're not putting some weird Earth disc into me, okay?”

Raoul laughed at the suggestion, but quickly replied, “No don't worry. I didn't bring them anyway...” he kept looking down at the dash, though. “But does your radio work?”

“Do I _have_ a radio?”

“Yeah, it's this one here.” Raoul reached over and turned one of Steve's new knobs on his dashboard. As he did, Steve felt new systems spring to life: the short antenna on his frame started actively picking up the radio signals around him and he felt his speakers (which he didn't even realize he had until that moment) start emitting sound. He didn't intend for any of this to happen, but he couldn't help it. It still felt weird to be controlled like that. He wasn't sure he'd ever get used to it... not that he wanted to.

However, Raoul seemed pleased by the resulting sound and started bobbing his head slightly. “Awesome! I love this song.”

“So... Earth music...” Steve started to speak, also somewhat listening to the sound still strangely coming from his own speakers. “I assume that's something you... _like_?”

“Of course, man!” Raoul said, “Music is like, my life!”

“Your life...?” Steve paused for a moment before continuing, “Oh! So you make music? Is that like your job?”

“Uhh, well…” the human turned his eyes away, “Not exactly… I mean, I _do_ make music but it’s not a full time gig or nothing…”

“Why not?”

“Because not everybody’s that lucky, man!” Raoul sounded a little irritated by the question, “People don’t get to live off their passions anymore. Most of us get stuck in jobs we hate just to get by.”

Steve definitely understood that sentiment. On the Nemesis you had the option of either miner or soldier. If you were lucky you could get a cushy job in the command center but those positions rarely opened up. He almost said this out loud to continue the conversation, but then remembered he was trying to keep the topic away from the Decepticons. So instead he just hummed a quiet agreement and moved on.

“So what _is_ your job, then?”

“Oh. Uhh…” Raoul’s grip on Steve’s steering wheel tightened suddenly. “You know, it’s kind of boring to talk about. What about you? What sorta stuff do you do all day?”

Scrap. “Oh you know… mining stuff.” Steve kept his answer as vague as possible. He’d already told the human too much about the mines.

“What’re you guys mining for?”

“Er just… _stuff._ ”

“Stuff?” Raoul repeated, raising an eyebrow. “Hey man, it’s cool if you don’t wanna talk about your mines and junk. I know you’re worried about your friend in one of ‘em.”

Steve didn’t respond to this. That hadn’t been the reason he had thought of, but now that Raoul had mentioned it, he didn’t want to think about it for that reason either.

Raoul noticed his silence and was quick to change the subject. “So hey, you’re an alien. Could you tell me about your planet? What’s it like?”

“It’s…” Steve was about to say ‘dead’ but he hesitated. He still hated thinking of Cybertron as just that one word. And this human didn’t know any better, so he didn’t have to describe it that way. “It’s called Cybertron.” He continued, “It’s made completely out of metal. Everyone who lived there was too- plants and animals included.”

“Cool. Do they all transform like you too?”

“Yeah most things there had two forms. Not that they were always vehicles or anything.” Steve felt his mood lift just a bit. It was nice talking about Cybertron in this way, so he ignored the part of him that was still sad about discussing the topic. “In fact we even had a few cities that could transform!”

“Haha! What?!” Raoul laughed at this, “No way! You’re making that up.”

“Heh, no it’s true!” Steve laughed as well, probably not helping his credibility on the matter. “For the most part though, people turned into vehicles. Unless they were something fancy like a fraggin’ microscope or something.”

“A _microscope_?” Raoul repeated this, looking both shocked and highly amused by the idea. “You got guys who turn into microscopes?!”

“Well I don’t personally know anyone who does… or did. But yeah, there were scientists who turned into microscopes and stuff. I didn’t live anywhere near where those kinds of people did though, so I only heard about that sorta thing.”

Raoul nodded in understanding. “Yeah, not everyone has the chance to pal around with the big wigs.”

“You’re not kidding. Before I became a Decepticon I never even left my district… Not that I really _could._ ” Steve mumbled this last part, barely even meaning to say it aloud. Raoul picked up on it, though.

“Whattaya mean you couldn’t leave?”

“Erm, well…” Steve paused for a moment, wondering if he should share this information with the human. After thinking it over for a moment, he decided that it was alright; this was sort of just like a history lesson, anyway. As long as he wasn’t telling him anything relevant to their Earth operations it was probably fine. So he continued, “Before the Decepticons came around things weren’t all that fair on Cybertron… Where I lived there were checkpoints and stuff to stop you from going into areas for classes higher than your own. They wanted to keep us separate.”

“That sucks!” Raoul sounded actually offended by the idea. “So you had whole groups of you guys caged up in parts of the cities?”

“Yeah. It did suck.” Steve was only barely able to stop himself from laughing about that slang word. It was a good one; he’d have to remember it for later. “That’s why I joined the Decepticons. I didn’t like how we were being treated and I knew the ‘Cons weren’t afraid to fight for what we wanted!”

“Hmm. Yeah, you don’t seem like the type to just take crap lying down.” Raoul smiled at this, “Good for you, man. Not everyone’s that tough.”

“Well everyone has a breaking point, I think. It just depends on the perso-” Steve hadn’t really been paying attention to the road, but he paused mid-sentence as he did. They had reached a straight stretch of road, and in his mirrors he spotted a familiar looking car.

“That’s…” he started to slow down. “That’s a Vehicon!” About a quarter mile back, a dark purple muscle car was trailing behind him.

“A what?” Raoul looked back too.

“Another Decepticon.” Steve said, “One of the soldiers… I guess they picked up my energon signal and came to see what I was doing.”

He slowed even further to allow the other car to catch up, but rather draw closer to him, their speed dropped off considerably so they continued to trail far behind. Steve hesitated for a moment, a little confused as to why they were keeping their distance. However, before he could do anything else, two more identical vehicles came barreling around a corner up ahead and headed straight for Steve at top speed! The two cars were side by side taking up both lanes, so Steve had to swerve right off the road to avoid hitting them. He slammed on his brakes just in time to avoid going head-on into the line of trees.

Raoul, who had let out a rather undignified squeak when they left the road, was now gripping Steve’s steering wheel so tight his hands were shaking.

“What the hell?!” he shouted, “I thought you said you knew these guys? Are they trying to kill you or something?!!”

“I-I don’t understand!” Steve cautiously shifted into reverse and backed away from the trees. “They’re definitely Vehicons, but why would they-?“

As Steve turned back towards the road, he saw that the other cars, after they had gone zooming past him, had circled back around and were blocking him from getting back onto the pavement. Before he could even say or do anything about it, the first car caught up at last. It veered off the road and went right for him! Just as it was about to crash right into his side, the car transformed into a Vehicon who then proceeded to slam one of his pedes down on Steve’s hood! Steve shifted into reverse and tried to back out from under him, but the weight on his front end was pushing his tires down into the soft dirt and preventing him from moving at all.

Then the other two transformed and pulled out their blasters. That was the last straw for Raoul; he unbuckled himself and practically leapt out of Steve’s seat. Before he could get very far, the Vehicon holding Steve down reached over and scooped him up into his claws.

“Well well, what have we here?” he teased. Then he looked back down to Steve, transforming out his own blaster to point at the human. “Surrender yourself, or the human gets it, Autobot!”

“Oh! You think I’m-? Ha ha!!” Suddenly it all clicked into place for Steve. Once it did, he couldn’t stop himself from laughing. That didn’t really help diffuse the situation, unfortunately, and the Vehicon just pressed down harder on Steve’s hood.

“This some kind of joke to you?” he snarled.

Raoul didn’t seem too pleased about his reaction either, and shouted, “What exactly about this is _funny_ , Steve?!”

The three Vehicons each glanced over at Raoul, probably wondering what kind of Autobot is named ‘Steve.’ He thought he better clear up this misunderstanding before these ‘Cons did any more damage.

“Look, I’m not an Autobot! I’m a Vehicon like you.” Steve finally said, he shifted his front tires in an attempt to wiggle his way out from under the pede squishing him into the grass. “Just get off me and I’ll show you.”

The blasters of the two Vehicons on the road started to hum with charge as he spoke.

“You think we’re stupid?” one of them said. She gestured at Steve’s frame with her blaster, “No Vehicon has an alt mode like that.”

“And Decepticons don’t pal around with humans, either!” the other chimed in as well.

“I know! It’s a long story, but just let me-“ Finally, Steve managed to finagle it so his wheels had a better grip on the ground, and he slammed on his reverse and backed out from under the Vehicon’s weight.

The three soldiers all trained their blasters on him, ready to fire, but Steve transformed immediately into his root mode and held up his servos in surrender.

“Look! See? I’m a Decepticon.” He slowly indicated the insignia on his chassis.

After seeing that he did in fact have a ‘Con badge rather than an Autobot one, the Vehicons hesitantly lowered their blasters. They were still eyeing him a bit suspiciously, though.

“Why do you look like that?” The one holding Raoul spoke up, “That’s definitely not one of our designated vehicle modes. Especially not for a _miner_.”

“I had to scan a new form after I left my mine.” Steve explained, obviously relieved that they had finally lowered their weapons. Now that they had calmed down a bit, these ‘Cons might actually be able to provide him with some answers. They were soldiers, so they might be one of the patrol units that had constant contact with the Nemesis.

He continued, “See, what happened was my mine lost communication with central command. We don’t know why or how and they weren’t giving us any answers, so I left… But you’re a patrol, right? You have a stronger comm link. Could you contact the Nemesis for me? I need to know if my friend’s mine is alright.”

The Vehicons just stared at him for a moment without answering. Finally one of them on the road responded. “We’re not a patrol; we came from a mine too.”

The one next to her nodded in agreement, “The same thing happened to our mine... We were kinda hoping you _were_ an Autobot. We were going to interrogate you to see if they… _did something_ to the Nemesis.”

So it wasn’t just a fluke, then. The other mines had lost contact just like his. And that meant these ‘Cons were just as in the dark as he was. No one said anything for a long moment as they all just stood there looking disappointed. It was a small voice that eventually broke the silence.

“Hey buddy! You wanna let me down now?!”

The Vehicon holding Raoul looked down at him as if just remembering he was there. “Oh. Right.” He then placed him down on the ground, not very gently, which caused him to fall over. He proceeded to scramble onto his feet and back towards Steve, keeping his eyes locked suspiciously on the soldier.

“What’s with the human anyway?” the Vehicon asked, gesturing down at Raoul.

“He’s helping me find my way to a friend’s mine.” Steve explained. “I don’t really know where anything is around here, so a human guide seemed like a good idea.”

“Hmm. I guess that makes sense… Kind of weird to have one of those squishy things ride around in you, though.” He shrugged and the other two nodded their agreement at his statement. “How’d you make the thing come along?”

“I didn’t _make_ him, we’re kind of… uh…” Steve paused to think of the right word to describe the two of them. Nothing came to mind. As he hesitated, Raoul spoke up.

“I have my own reasons for riding with Steve.” He said, and then he looked up at him. “And by the way, where’s my stuff?! It was in your passenger seat!”

“Oh.” Steve shifted his plates around a bit. “Oh yeah, it’s still in there. I can feel it. Hang on.” He transformed back into his vehicle mode and popped open his passenger door. As Raoul circled around to check on his things, the other Vehicons looked on curiously.

“You let it talk to you like that? So is he your pet or are you _his_?” one of them said mockingly. The others offered a quiet laugh at this comment.

Raoul shot an irritated glare at them, but Steve said nothing in response. They may have been Decepticon soldiers, but they were nothing like the ones he was friends with. They were nothing like Frank. That was clear just from the fact that they had abandoned their duties to their mine, something Frank had adamantly said that he would not do.

“Why did you three leave your mine?” Steve asked, “I mean, I’m looking for a friend. But what about you guys?”

The soldier in front shrugged his shoulder plates, “Well we weren’t getting any answers, like you said, and a lot of us suspected that the Autobots were up to something. So we weren’t about to wait around for the ‘Bots to come crashing into our mine to kill everyone.”

“Yeah. Most of us left, in fact.” One of the others added, “I think only the foreman and a few others stayed behind… I mean, if the ‘Bots did something to the Nemesis then the mines would be next, right?”

Steve felt his tank churn anxiously as they spoke. He’d thought something similar back in his own mine. Frank must have too, which is why he insisted on staying: to protect the mine. Suddenly Steve felt a pang of guilt for having left him.

“What _is_ an Autobot?”

Steve noticed Raoul had stopped looking over his belongings and was looking at him curiously. The other Vehicons seemed a bit amused by the question, but it wasn’t that strange of him to ask. Steve hadn’t actually explained to the human about the war they were still fighting.

“Remember how I told you things kinda _sucked_ back on Cybertron?” Steve explained, “Well, they’re the ones we had to fight to change that.”

“Hmm. They sound like _jerks_.” Raoul said, slamming Steve’s passenger door shut. Yet another neat slang term to remember.

Focusing back on the conversation at hand, Steve turned his attention to the Vehicons again. “So if you all just left… Where will you go now?”

“We don’t have a specific plan. We just wanted to get away from the mines.” The third one answered this time, “We just want to stay off the Autobots’ radar for as long as we can.”

Steve hesitated with his next question, “…You wouldn’t happen to be from mine NTX-19, would you?”

“No… does it matter?”

Steve was a little relieved that the mine he was heading to might not be empty, but also a bit disappointed that they wouldn’t know what the state of Rodrigo’s mine was. “That’s where I’m headed. It’s the mine where my friend Rodrigo works.” he explained.

“You’re wasting your time.”

“Why?” Steve tensed up as he waited for the reply. Maybe they _did_ know something about the mine.

“Because if your friend is smart, he’ll be long gone from that ticking time bomb!” The Vehicon said, “NTX-19 is one of the biggest mines we have; the ‘Bots would’ve hit a place like that first.”

“Well, that’s where I’m going.” Steve’s tone as he said this was probably more aggressive than he had intended it to be, but he couldn’t help it. These soldiers were really starting to grind his gears. “So if you’ll excuse me… come on, Raoul.”

Raoul shot one last glare up at the Vehicons and circled around, dropping into Steve’s driver’s seat. The door slammed shut and Steve took off down the road. He didn’t get very far before realizing the soldiers were following him. One pulled up alongside him while the other two trailed behind.

“Hey, don’t go off all mad like that! We didn’t mean to upset you.” She shouted, “Look, why don’t you come with us? You’re better off steering clear of the mines for a while. It’ll be a lot easier this way, too. We can help each other out.”

Steve slowed down just slightly for a moment, as if he were considering her offer. Raoul noticed him hesitating.

“Hey man, if you wanna give up on the mine thing, I understand…” he whispered, “It sounds like a lot of trouble.”

At Raoul’s words, Steve’s engine revved angrily. “I won’t give up!” he said loudly, “And I’m not afraid that it’ll be difficult. Even if I fail, I still have to try! And none of you are going to talk me out of it!” With that, Steve sped up, zooming ahead past the Vehicon.

As he pulled away, she slowed down along with the other two soldiers. “Okay. Good luck-” She called after him. The three of them started to turn and head in the opposite direction.

“-you’re gonna need it!”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long, I feel bad about it.. But this story ended up being longer than I thought it would be. But we're almost there!! Next chapter is the last one :U Enjoy~
> 
> Thoughts and criticisms are encouraged and appreciated!

The drive continued without any conversation for a long time. Steve maintained an air of angry indignation for as long as he could, but it faded away after a while. They would be at this for some time yet and there was only so long a mech could pout before it got too tiring. He had thought Raoul would try to talk to him about what had happened with the other Vehicons, but the human hadn’t bothered. Instead he opted to turn on Steve’s radio again and let the music cover the awkward silence.

As the time passed, they eventually made it out of the forest and began to see some scraps of civilization. Raoul had been content to let Steve drive them along the mountain road up until then, but once they started seeing other cars and crossing intersections, he put his hands back on Steve’s wheel. When he felt the human’s hands grab him again, Steve accidentally broke their silence with a displeased huff through his vents.

Raoul glanced down at the dashboard with an equally annoyed look. “Don’t give me that. Remember what I said? You still don’t have a driver’s license.”

“I can’t believe you humans need someone else's permission to drive.” Steve grumbled, his mirrors shifting just slightly in annoyance. “…probably because you have so many random rules about it.”

This made Raoul smile, if only for a moment. His face grew serious again as he focused on the road ahead of them. Steve could tell there was something troubling the human, but he wasn’t sure how to ask, or if he even wanted to.

After a few more minutes of silence, Raoul spoke up at last. “Hey man… so…” he seemed reluctant to continue, but after a pause he spoke again, “Why wouldn’t you go with those other Decepticons? I mean, if there’s really a bunch of autocons after you guys, wouldn’t it be safer to stick with them?”

“Auto _bots_.” Steve corrected. He hesitated before continuing, “And I didn’t really like those guys. I didn’t want to have to stick around them just because it’s easier.”

“That’s not a good reason. I gotta work with people I don’t like all the time.” Raoul’s grip on Steve’s steering wheel tightened slightly. “Not liking ‘em doesn’t mean I’d be better off trying to make it on my own.”

“Well, they weren’t going to help me get to this mine, either. That’s my goal and I’m not putting it aside because it’d be easier! The easy way isn’t always the right way.”

“No offense, Steve, but that’s kinda stupid.”

“What?!” Steve _was_ a bit offended by how blunt the human was, and his pitch reached a high tone to show it. ”No it’s not! I’m doing something important by trying to help my friend. It would be cowardly not to try!”

“Playing it safe isn’t the same as being cowardly, man!” Raoul insisted. His voice was slightly strained, and he grew louder as he spoke. “I mean, what if you can’t find your friend at the mine, or worse, what if those Autobot guys are already there? What’s the point of doing the right thing if you just get yourself killed doing it?!”

Steve didn’t respond for a moment. He had been trying to put off thinking about what he would do if this worst case scenario really was the case, but Raoul was right. If the Autobots were at the mine he would almost certainly be killed. However, now that he was thinking of that possibility, only one response came to Steve’s mind.

“Well… then at least I’ll have died for a good reason.”

Raoul’s mouth opened as if he were going to respond, but then quickly snapped shut again without a word. A few minutes passed by quietly, and Raoul seemed to be lost in thought. In fact, he seemed so distracted that he didn’t even press Steve’s brake pedal as they approached a stop sign. Thankfully, that was the one human law Steve did know, so he stopped on his own. He paused there for a moment before continuing on, not saying anything to Raoul. He wasn’t sure why the human was intent on arguing with him, so he decided to just let it go and hope they could continue peacefully. Unfortunately, Raoul did not have the same mindset. Once they had passed through the intersection, he spoke up again.

“I still don’t get it.” He seemed a bit distant as he continued, like he wasn’t even talking to Steve, “If you find something that’s steady and safe, you’re better off sticking to it even if it’s not what you wanted. That’s just… that’s just how the world works for everyone. You can’t just do whatever you want, that’s how you get in trouble! And... and you can’t make a living like that anyway...”

“Uhh… what? Are you still talking about me here?”

Raoul only stared ahead for a moment. He mumbled something inaudibly but didn’t say anything more, content to pout in silence. The human was acting so strangely, Steve didn't even care that his question was ignored. He was starting to worry about his behavior, though.

The awkward silence returned again and stretched out for a long time. As the road around them slowly gained more and more traffic, Raoul's grip on Steve's wheel grew slowly tighter. Steve pretended not to notice since it seemed like Raoul hadn't either. Whatever was making him so anxious, it was only getting worse the farther they drove. Steve sort of wanted to help, but couldn't think of anything comforting to say; especially because Raoul wasn't even being direct about what was bothering him.

After a while, Steve stopped paying attention to the road and left his controls to Raoul. Hopefully the human would be able to focus on the road, because he was getting distracted by their surroundings. The trees and greenery were long gone now. Instead there was concrete and metal structures, and plenty of humans to go with them. Further ahead he could still see the green of some tall mountains. The mountain range was probably beautiful, but Steve couldn't really tell with any of this organic stuff. Their height just made him feel like even in the most un-green place he'd been to on this planet, all that nature scrap was still looming over him. There was _too much_ green on this planet.

The inorganic buildings made the place feel a bit more familiar than the forest had, but even so, Steve was a little bit uneasy about seeing so many humans around. The fact that there were so many of them around meant there was no way Rodrigo’s mine was anywhere near this place; it was way too populated to maintain their cover. Raoul was probably just having them pass through because it was faster. He just hoped the human knew where he was going, because Steve had no clue.

Just as he thought this, Raoul turned his wheel and steered them down a narrow side street between two buildings. Steve didn't understand, but he didn't object to the new route, even as they pulled through an open gate attached to the alley walls and into a lot behind the buildings. It wasn't until they came to a full stop in front of a closed garage door that he decided to speak up.

“Uh... What are we doing here?"

Raoul didn't respond immediately. Instead he took a long, deep breath and looked out the window towards the garage for a moment. Then, as he reached over towards his bag on the opposite seat, he finally spoke.

“Look, I'm not actually... That is... I can't go with you the whole way.” he was hesitating with his words. It seemed like he wasn't even sure what he was trying to say as he said it. “I'm supposed to be meeting someone here, so you should... you should go. If you're here for this they'll... Well, I want you to find your friend. So just go.”

With that, he picked up the bag and his toolbox and opened the door, stepping out onto the pavement.

"Whoa wait a second!" Steve tried to swerve around and get in Raoul's way as he started towards the building. "I still need you! How am I supposed to find my way to the mine without your help?"

Raoul shrugged, not looking directly at Steve, "Just follow the road we were on straight through the city. It's in the mountain range on the other side. The tallest mountain, that's the one the coordinates are on." Side-stepping around Steve, he started towards the garage door again. "Now get out of here before I change my mind..."

"Change your mind? About what?"

Before Raoul could respond, if he even was going to respond, the door next to the garage started to open up. Raoul let out a string of quiet expletives and turned back to Steve.

"You gotta go, man!" He said in an urgent whisper, "Go! Before they see you!"

Raoul sounded terrified! Even though Steve had no clue what was going on, that was reason enough for him to stick around. They'd only been working together for a short time, but even so, Steve wasn't the type to leave a team mate behind, especially if they were in trouble.

"Just tell me what's going on." Steve matched Raoul's hushed tone, "Are you in trouble?"

"No!" Raoul pressed his palm against his forehead. He was looking increasingly worried. "It's not what you think. It's _you_ that's-"

He cut his sentence off at the sound of footsteps approaching. Turning back around, he was faced with two older men stopping just in front of him. The two men loomed over Raoul, each of them kept one hand in the pocket of their suits and the closer and larger one had the other around the cigar sticking out of his mouth. After taking a long drag off the cigar, he lowered it and blew a large puff of smoke right into Raoul's face.

"You're late, boy." His voice was low and gravelly. "You got my delivery?"

Raoul tried not to cough from the smoke and quickly held up the white duffel bag. The second man stepped forward and snatched it from his hands, opening it up to shuffle through the contents. From what Steve could see it looked like a bunch of green slips all strapped together. He was probably missing something, but a bag of green junk didn't seem significant enough to warrant how scared Raoul seemed.

"Looks like you're good for something after all." The man said, zipping the bag shut again. Then he gestured over to the larger man, "Follow Jim inside and he'll get you paid... I'll bring the car into the shop."

"W-wait!" Raoul stepped between the man and Steve, holding his hands up to stop him from getting closer. "This car's not- uh... i-it's not the one I was gonna give to you! I just- I need more time to get the right one."

There was a pause as the men looked impatiently back and forth from Raoul to Steve.

"Why not this one?" The bigger one, Jim, asked, clearly not expecting a good answer.

"This one's uh... not mine." Raoul shrugged.

At first, both men just stared on in confusion, but after a moment they both started laughing. Jim slapped Raoul on the back like he'd made a hilarious joke and started pushing him towards the open doorway.

"Car thief humor, huh? Good one, kid!" He said. Then he turned to the second man, "Phil, get it into the shop. We'll get some good parts outta that one."

"But Mr. Geddis-"

Raoul was cut off as the hand on his shoulder moved to the back of his neck. "Don't push it, kid. My brother and I are looking forward to working with you more in the future. So don't blow it by bein' a wise ass." With that, Jim released Raoul so he could reach down and pull open the garage door.

Steve had been thoroughly confused by the whole exchange and was still trying to process what was happening, but seeing the inside of that warehouse clicked it all into place for him. The building floor was expansive but the size of the place was diminished by the fact that it was packed with cars, all of them in different states of disassembly. Parts and paneling were being pulled off by the humans inside even as he was watching. Leftover scraps of cable and loose gears were being tossed aside into boxes as the humans used their tools on the vehicles. A few off the more intact ones even appeared to be having their oil or fuel drained.

These were obviously just Earth vehicles, not Cybertronian, and certainly not alive. Even so, Steve felt his fuel tank lurch as he watched the spectacle. These two humans thought he was just a regular car. They wanted to what they'd done to these cars to _him._ And even worse, Raoul had led him here knowing that they would! That thought was just as disturbing as look on at all these dismembered cars.

While he had been distracted with staring inside the garage, the other Geddis brother, Phil, had stepped up next to Steve and placed his hand on his door handle. Feeling his door being opened finally shocked Steve out of his stupor. Forcefully pulling it shut, he slammed on his reverse and backed away from the human.

"Keep your fleshy hands off me!" He shouted this just he skidded to a very abrupt stop to avoid hitting the wall of the opposite building.

This surprised Phil so much that he stumbled backwards and fell over onto the pavement. His brother quickly ran over to help him up.

"What the hell is going on here?" He demanded, glaring back at Raoul.

"Uhhh it's... I was..." Raoul stumbled trying to find an explanation that made sense, but he was clearly struggling. Behind him, the other humans inside had stopped working on the cars and looked back to see what all the noise was. Among them, a thin, pale looking female wearing a white coat and green goggles over her eyes was inspecting the work. She placed down the part she had in her hands and was watching Steve curiously. Meanwhile, the Geddis brothers, both now on their feet, started towards Steve again, looking determined.

"I don't know who's in there, but you better quit messing around!" Jim shouted, "My sense of humor has about run dry for today."

Steve revved his engine as they approached, trying to sound intimidating. It seemed to work because both men stopped in their tracks. Currently they were standing between Steve and the entrance to the alley, though. So Steve inched forward, making it clear where he was trying to go.

"Get out of my way!" He demanded, "Don't make me run you down, because I _will_!"

"No one threatens the Geddis." Jim said this in more of a low growl than anything else, and immediately turned around to point to the alley entrance. "Close the gate! This punk isn't going anywhere!!"

One of the workers in the garage threw down his tools and ran over to the gate to follow his orders. As he hurried over, Steve revved his engine and the two men had to jump out of his way as he took off trying to make it out before it shut him in. He wasn't quite able to make it, however, and the heavy barred gate slammed closed before he could get there. He swerved back around to face the Geddis brothers and a few more of their human workers as they approached him. The Geddis finally drew their hands out of their pockets and aimed the pistols they'd been concealing at Steve.

"Alright, step outta there boy, and we might be convinced to let you go." Jim shouted.

"Mr. Geddis, it's not what you think!!" Raoul tried to protest, but another of the humans hurried forward, grabbing him from behind to stop him from interfering.

Phil took his eyes off Steve for a moment to look back at Raoul. "Keep your mouth shut, kid! You're on the hook for this too!!"

"Open the gate..." Steve's engine revved, as he spoke, sounding somewhat like a growl. "Don't make me do it myself."

Both the brothers laughed at this and cocked the hammer of their respective pistols. "Go on, I'd love to see you try!"

Steve's engine rumbled angrily. He was so sick of being on this planet! All he wanted to do was find his friend and get back home, and these obnoxious humans were making it so hard for him. It had been stupid to trust an organic to help him out; just look where it had gotten him! He should never have even spoken to Raoul. He should have just stuck to protocol: squish any humans that got too close.

With one last rev of his engine, Steve finally spoke again. "Alright, then. You asked for it..."

Steve floored his gas pedal and zoomed straight towards the closest Geddis brother. Both of them started unloading their firearms at him, but the bullets did nothing to deter him, only deflecting off his paneling and leaving a few dents. Just as he was about to ram into one of the men, Steve transformed into his root mode and, after skidding a moment to slow himself down, he brought one of his massive pedes down to crush the human.

Luckily for them, both the men managed to leap out of the way just in time to avoid being squished by the Vehicon. Each a mixture of terrified and dumbfounded on his face as they continued to scramble away, just as the other humans did. The only one to react any differently upon seeing Steve's new form was the woman in the white coat.

"A Transformer!" She shouted, leaping forward she grabbed ahold of one of the men and shoved him towards Steve. "Quickly, capture it! MECH will quadruple your pay if you deliver that robot!"

"Quadruple, you say?" The shock and fear that had overtaken the two Geddis' faces was suddenly replaced with excitement. Getting back to their feet again, the brothers leveled their pistols up at Steve again. The other humans seemed equally excited by this woman's promise, and hurried to offer back up, a number of them pulling out their own concealed weapons.

The man holding back Raoul had released him in favor of drawing his gun, so Raoul was free to run up to the Geddis brothers. He reached forward, trying to grab at the pistol the closest one was pointing at Steve.

"Stop!!" He shouted, struggling to pull the gun away, "You've gotta let him go, you don't understand!"

With one hard swing from his fist, Jim sent the boy to the ground clutching his face. He didn't even acknowledge Raoul further, but turned and pointed his gun right back at Steve. "Take out the robot, boys!" He shouted to the other humans, "Unload everything you got into this thing!"

Steve held up one arm to shield his face as the tiny bullets started pinging off his paneling. They certainly stung as they left little marks in the metal of his plating, but by no means was it going to bring him down. It was actually a little funny. Was this really the best the humans had to offer? Just as he was thinking that, another of the humans, apparently one without a gun, came charging at his legs, holding a comically large hammer. With a loud shout, he pulled it back, preparing to hit Steve's leg with it. That piece of metal looked big enough to actually leave a dent in him, so Steve pulled back his leg and kicked hard to the side, sending the human flying into the wall.

The other humans didn't get a chance to react to this, because Steve immediately lowered his arm from his face and transformed out his blaster, taking aim at the Geddis brothers. Before they could jump out of the way or take cover, Steve fired two shots. After seeing the blasts sear through the men and even into the asphalt behind them, the rest of the humans started running. Most of them ran for cover in the warehouse, and a few of them even ran the opposite direction towards some of the opposite buildings.

Steve leveled a few more shots at the scrambling organics but none of them made contact. It was hard to aim at such small targets that were moving so fast, but as long as they were leaving, he honestly didn't care if they lived or not. He did notice that there was just one human who hadn't run away, and his blaster turned quickly towards them.

It was Raoul.

He hadn't moved from where he'd fallen after getting punched, and was just staring up at Steve with wide, frightened eyes. The blaster stayed up as he stared down at the human and neither of them moved for a few tense moments...

At last, Steve transformed his weapon back into his arm and turned towards the gate. He didn't say anything further, and reached forward to grab ahold of the metal bars, and after struggling for a second, the whole gate ripped off its hinges, opening up the alley way.

Just as Steve was slowly turning to toss the heavy, mangled scrap away, a human came rushing out of the warehouse again. It was the pale woman from before- the one who had offered to quadruple their pay and had called Steve a "Transformer." On her shoulder was what looked like a small cannon and she was pointing it right at the Decepticon!

She reached up to prime the device and it made a quiet whine as it was switched on, "If you want anything done right, you have to do it yourself, I suppose." She mumbled this mostly to herself, and then suddenly the tip of the weapon started to glow.

This weapon looked a lot more dangerous than the tiny ones the other humans had used, but Steve was still holding up the heavy gate. There wasn't time to take cover or dodge her shot, so he just braced himself, trying to hold the metal bars of the gate between them and hoping that might help. Just as she was about to pull the trigger, she was sent off balance by a hard shove as Raoul leapt forward and tackled the woman. The two humans went tumbling to the ground and the metal canister that was launched towards Steve missed. It attached itself to the wall, releasing a spray of sparks as a powerful electric charge ran through the wall.

Seeing what that weapon was capable of, Steve didn't waste any more time. He threw down the gate and transformed, speeding out of the alley way and out onto the street. Behind him he could hear Raoul and the woman screaming at each other, but the words were indiscernible, and as he drove down the street, their voices quickly faded and were gone. That was good. He didn't want to hear what they were going to do to Raoul.

He didn't feel bad about leaving him behind; Raoul had lied and tricked him into almost getting disassembled by those stupid organics. He wasn't even sure why he didn't shoot the stupid human when he'd had the chance back there.

Although, if he had, no one would have been there to stop the other one from getting him with that cannon and Steve would be slagged too... but what did it matter if Raoul had saved him once? It was the human's fault he'd been in that situation in the first place!

Steve pushed that thought from his head and turned his attention back to the road. He didn't want to think about this right now. It was confusing him, and he had to focus. He had to keep going straight, and then... And then what? The mountains. Yes, the mine was on the tallest mountain. That was his goal. That's all he cared about. Raoul wasn't his problem anymore.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for your patience, readers! Sorry this chapter took so long to get out, but it's because it's over 6,000 words long :U Anyway, enjoy the epic conclusion!
> 
> Thoughts and criticisms are encouraged and appreciated!

It didn't take long for Steve to make it out of the city. It helped that he was going much faster than the other vehicles around him, and they all seemed to swerve out of his way when he went through the intersections. Raoul probably would have yelled at him about that... But Raoul was gone, and he was trying not to think about that.  
  
Once he'd gotten away from the more populated areas, Steve followed a road up the side of the mountain, trying to find somewhere high enough to get a view of the whole range. He was looking for the tallest mountain, and he had to see which one of them that was. After struggling for a bit trying to find a way up high, he went off road and started climbing that way. Looking out on the peak, he found that none of the nearby mountains looked to be any higher than the one he was already on.  
  
That was a relief. He was already exactly where he needed to be! Well, almost exactly. He still had to find the mine entrance, though. That would prove to be a challenge. The Decepticons were careful to place their mines and their entrance points in places that humans were unlikely to find. After hours of trudging up and down the rocky terrain, Steve hadn't managed to catch sight of anything that could even possibly be the mine. The first few caves he came upon turned out to be just empty caverns, so he was starting to get pretty discouraged. After coming upon another cave that turned out to be too small to even drive into, Steve decided to take a rest and sat on a nearby outcropping of rocks.  
  
He hadn't expected this to be easy, but it was still taking its toll on him. He transformed back a few plates on his chassis to reach into his storage space and pulled out what was left of the energon Frank had given him. The cube was somewhat crushed by being stored away for so long, but it's contents were so diminished already that it didn't even matter.  
  
Steve was just about to reach up and remove his mask to down the rest of the energon, when he paused to think. Frank and the others were still just sitting around waiting back at his mine. Maybe the Decepticons had already gotten in contact with them... Or maybe someone else had found them.  
  
His claws dug into the plastic of the cube, denting it further. What if something happened to Frank? He wasn't there to help. He wouldn't even know about it. The very idea was twisting his intake into knots. He didn't think he could even keep this energon down with the way he was suddenly feeling.  
  
Letting out a heavy vent, Steve hunched over the cube and spoke aloud to himself, "This... was a mistake..."  
  
Honestly, what had he been thinking? Did he expect to save Rodrigo? Was he going to heroically find the answers and save his mine or something? All he had done was get himself lost on an alien planet and then abandon the one person he'd met who was trying to help him out... And he thought he wasn't the type to leave a team mate behind. Of course he was. He'd done it to his own mine. He'd even done it to Frank! And for what? For this?  
  
Rather than sit there and stew in his own misery, Steve slowly pulled himself onto his pedes again. Taking a few steps forward, he reached up to store the energon away again. Unfortunately, he wasn't quite paying attention, and stepped on some looser rocks that went sliding out from under him. Steve struggled to keep his footing, but it was no use. He tumbled to the side and went sliding down a rocky incline, banging heavily against the rocks and even taking out a few trees that got in his way. Finally, he slid to a stop just before reaching the bottom of the steep ravine.  
  
Steve didn't move for a minute. He was feeling pretty dinged up, and there was Earth vegetation stuck in some of his joints. Just as he was thinking this couldn't possibly get any worse, he realized the cube he'd had in his servo was gone. He snapped his head up and looked down a few yards to where the rocks plateaued off at the bottom. During the fall he'd lost his grip on the cube, and it had gone flying down the hill and the plastic burst open on impact. The energon was splattered across the ground, useless.  
  
"DAMN IT!!" Steve screamed, slamming his fist into the rocks beneath him. It probably caused more damage to himself than the ground, but he didn't care. He pulled his arm back and struck again, then again, then again. "Damn this planet! Damn it to the Pit!!! I can't..." Letting his helm fall back onto the rocks, Steve vented heavily yet again. "I can't do this anymore..." He spoke quietly this time. "I want to go home."  
  
He let his optics shutter for a moment. If only it were that easy. He couldn't go home. None of them could. But he could at least go back to his own mine- he could go back to Frank. He would fuss about all the dings Steve had gotten and help clean out all the gross organic stuff from his pedes and his joints. That sounded so tempting right now. Sure, they wouldn't be any closer to finding out what happened, but it would be a lot easier.  
  
Feeling the crushing weight of defeat on his chassis, Steve struggled to pull himself upright. He only managed to get himself onto his knees before he finally turned his helm up to look around. The ravine was steep, but not steep enough that he wouldn't be able to climb out. He could make it out of there and be on his way back pretty quickly. He turned the other way to put his servos on a rock nearby to help pull himself all the way up, but something caught his optic and he hesitated.  
  
Farther along the ravine, it ended in a steep wall with an overhang, and just below it... A massive, dark opening in the rock.  
  
As Steve stared into the dark cavern, he felt his spark constrict in its casing. The fear that suddenly overcame him that was stronger than it had ever been on this journey. That was it. That had to be it! This narrow, steep ravine was the perfect place to put a mine entrance, and the cavern was leading down and into the mountainside. He'd found Rodrigo's mine! It was hitting him all of a sudden that he had no idea what he was going to find in that mine. If he went in there, his worst fear might be realized. He might even be killed! He had been about to give up and go back, so maybe he still could...  
  
But no, he was here; he'd made it to the end. He had to at least look inside.  
  
Feeling a sudden surge of energy, Steve quickly stood up and, after transforming out his blaster, he started towards the cave entrance.  
  
Stepping inside, he slowed to a quiet pace, keeping his optics trained forward in the darkness. He couldn't make out much, but going in deeper made it pretty clear that this was not a natural cavern: this had been drilled out. It was definitely the mine.  
  
As he continued down, he saw a barely visible, faint blue glow from up ahead. There was energon... Whether it was still crystallized or someone's spilled energon he couldn't tell, but the fact that he was so close to the main chamber and all the mine's lights were off was not a good sign.  
  
He paused a moment just as he was about to round the corner to where the glow was coming from. This was it; whatever was waiting ahead was what he had been working so hard to find. He could feel his whole frame shaking, terrified by the possibility of what he might see... Drawing in one last deep ventilation, Steve whirled around the corner with his blaster primed to fire!  
  
It was so dark he could barely see into the massive chamber, but after a few quick sweeps across the room with his blaster, it appeared that the whole place was empty.  
  
Steve remained cautious as he stepped forward to look around a bit more. The blue light was, in fact, from the crystallized energon still protruding from the cavern walls. There was no spilled energon to be seen. From what he could tell in the darkness, it didn't seem like there had been a fight here. No blaster marks, no exploded energon, nothing of the kind that would indicate a struggle. That helped calm his nerves him a bit, and he transformed his blaster away.  
  
"Hello?!" Steve called out, looking up towards distant ceiling. "Is there anyone here? ...Rodrigo?"  
  
His voice echoed back across the multiple levels of the mine... But there was no other response.  
  
Feeling confident that he really was alone, Steve flicked on the headlights on his chassis to get a better look around. There was no mining or processing equipment to be found, and the processed and cubed energon, which a mine like this ought to have a lot of, was all gone too. Someone had cleaned this place out... But who?  
  
Turning his helm towards the center of the cavern, Steve finally saw something that had been left behind: the main console. That controlled the lights, the elevator, and the mine's communications. Who ever had decided to clear out this mine had probably decided this was too big and heavy to bother with. And it was big. This mine was one of the largest they had, so their communication equipment was much stronger than the one back at his own mine. If anything would be able to reach out for help, it was this console.  
  
Hurrying over to it, Steve stepped up onto the platform and pressed the command to power it on. Nothing happened. He tried again with the same result. Someone had disabled it, and unfortunately, he had no idea how to get it up and running again.  
  
After a moment, Steve let his servo slide off the console's keyboard. This whole time he had been looking for the mine, he had at least expected to find some answers when he got here. Whether they would be good or bad was what he had been worried about. He hadn't expected to find nothing at all. All he had now was more questions. Where did everyone go? Were they evacuated by Decepticons, or captured by Autobots? Did they all get tired of waiting and leave like those other Vehicons? He didn't have a clue... He had nothing.  
  
Steve sank to the ground, drawing his legs up to his chassis. His headlights faded off and he sat there silently in the darkness. He didn't want to move. He probably couldn't have brought himself to move even if he had wanted to.  
  
The minutes passed by and still he stayed curled up by the console, unmoving. Now that he'd found this place empty, he really should go back to his own mine... But what would be the point? He didn't have any answers, and what if when he finally got back, his own team had vanished?! If he got back and everyone was gone- if Frank had disappeared too... he didn't even want to know about it! He was better off just sitting there, alone in the dark, until he rusted and his spark flickered out...  
  
He didn't know how much time had passed, but finally, Steve was shocked out of his despondency by the sound of an engine rumbling towards him. Turning his optics up, he saw a faint light coming from the entrance but it was growing stronger by the second.  
  
Before Steve could even try to stand up, a pair of headlights came bursting into the cavern and a vehicle screeched to a stop, pointed right at him. He was somewhat blinded by the sudden light, so Steve couldn't tell what or who the vehicle was, so he instinctively drew his blaster.  
  
"Stay back!!" He shouted a warning, but quickly realized it was unnecessary. The lights suddenly dimmed to low and the engine cut off as the car powered down.  
  
"Hey, chill out, man. It's only me!"  
  
Steve recognized the voice but he couldn't believe it... That is, until Raoul stepped out of the car and into the dim light of the car's parking lights. "Sorry, didn't mean to scare you." He shrugged.  
  
"How did you...?" Steve looked over at the bulky, green and black car Raoul had gotten out of.  
  
"I swiped it from that lady who tried to shock you." Raoul was smirking as he approached. "She may have had some tough weapons, but other than that, she was a push-over. And everybody else had already been scared off, so I figured I'd help myself. It was the only way I could come after you."  
  
Steve watched as Raoul struggled to pull himself up the step onto the platform with him. "But why did you come after me? I left you behind... I thought you'd be mad."  
  
Raoul stopped as he finally reached Steve, and looked up at the sitting robot towering over him. "Well, a little. But to be fair, that whole thing was kinda my fault, wasn't it?" He mumbled, "Sorry I tricked you... It was really uncool of me to try and uh... Sell you to the Geddis brothers."  
  
"Yeah... It was."  
  
"And I'm sorry. Really, I am! That's why I had to come find you again," Raoul continued with a smile, "I had to make sure my main machine wasn't in trouble."  
  
"No... No trouble." Steve looked out at the empty mine. "Nothing at all, in fact... Everybody's already gone."  
  
Raoul turned to look around as well. "Oh... Where did they go? Can we find them?"  
  
Steve shrugged. "All the systems were disabled. I can't even turn on the lights..." He pulled his legs back up to his chassis again. "You were right, Raoul. I should have given up already... This was a huge waste of time."  
  
"No! No, that's crap, man!" Raoul reached forward, placing his hands on the plating of Steve's ankle. "I was totally wrong. I was just afraid to take risks for myself so I kept on making compromises... and you know where that got me? Working for chumps like the Geddis brothers! But you're not like me, Steve. You can't give up now. You're so close to finding some answers!"  
  
"But I can't! The console is-"  
  
"The console is just a machine. And you happen to be lookin' at a world-class mechanic, man!" Raoul turned and jumped off the platform, running over to his car. "Alien tech or not, I'll have that thing up and running in no time at all."  
  
Steve watched as Raoul pulled his toolbox out of the car and hurried back over. He couldn't be serious. This technology was thousands of years more advanced than anything Raoul had ever seen; there was no way the human was going to be able to turn it back on by fiddling with his little tools! ...But it wasn't like there were any other options left. And maybe he could manage to get a little power into the console. Anything at all would be helpful, because then Steve could step in and work the controls to power the rest of it on. Against his better judgement, Steve was actually starting to feel a bit of hope again.  
  
Raoul hurried back over and stepped over to the side of the massive machine.  
  
"Alright." He said, placing his toolbox down. "Let's start by pulling back some of these panels." He looked up at Steve. "Think you can help me with that, pal?"  
  
Steve nodded and shifted to his knees right in front of the console. It took him a little bit of finagling, but once he got his claws into the metal, he managed to pry a section of the panels back.  
  
Raoul let out an impressed whistle as he looked at the inner workings of the machine. "I got my work cut out for me..." He mumbled. Then he reached down, pulling out a few tools from the box. "But if I can hot-wire a car, I can sure as hell hot-wire this baby!"  
  
As Raoul started touching the wires inside, Steve scooted back a bit to watch him work. It would definitely be awhile before he made any progress, so he may as well sit back and try not to worry anymore than he already was.  
  
Unfortunately, just as he was starting to relax a little, a blaring siren suddenly erupted from the console! Raoul was so startled he dropped his tools, staggering backwards while covering his ears.  
  
"What the hell?" He shouted, "I barely did anything at all!! You didn't tell me this thing had an alarm, man!"  
  
"I didn't know it did!" Steve had to shout over the blaring siren, and his audio receptors were aching from the noise.  
  
He'd never seen one of their consoles do this, and back in his own mine the foreman had been rooting around in their own system for way longer than Raoul had. Something had set it off, but what did that mean? Was it just going to keep making this awful noise? Then after a moment, another sound joined the wailing screech: a mechanical voice.  
  
"Organic life detected: initiating defense protocols"  
  
"That sounds bad!" Raoul quickly leapt away from the panels just as a visible charge of electricity ran through the circuits. The blue sparks were arcing dangerously close to the human, so Steve quickly scrambled forward, scooping Raoul up into his servos. A few dizzying seconds later, Raoul found himself behind the wheel of Steve's vehicle mode again and they were zooming off to a safe distance from the electrified machinery.  
  
Once they were in the clear, Steve circled back around just in time so the two of them could watch smoke start pouring from out of the console's paneling as it continued to sizzle with charge.  
  
"That was too close..." Raoul mumbled, leaning back in the seat. "Sorry about that, man... I mean... I've dealt with some pesky alarm systems in my line of work, but that was just unfair."  
  
Steve let out a resigned vent as he watched the smoke floating up towards the high ceiling of the cavern. "Well... I probably shouldn't have gotten my hopes up." He replied, "But I didn't realize our tech could be set to... uh... self-destruct if a human messed with it."  
  
Raoul opened Steve's door and hopped out. "So this thing's totally fried, I guess... we'll just have to do better next time." he said starting back towards the platform again.  
  
Steve's whole chassis lowered sadly as Raoul spoke. "Raoul... There is no next time. You said it yourself: the thing's fried."  
  
"Right. This one is." Raoul shrugged his shoulders as he continued to walk, "But there's other mines around, aren't there?"  
  
"Oh. Well, there are, but if we couldn't get this one to work-"  
  
"We couldn't get it to work 'cause we didn't know the thing was boobytrapped against humans!" Raoul interrupted. He paused to climb up onto the platform and stopped right next to his toolbox to turn back and look at Steve. "But if we find another one, I can just have you do the repair work while I talk you through it. No alarms are gonna go off for one of you miners fixing your own console."  
  
"I guess that's true." Steve slowly rolled closer to the edge of the platform. "But wait, are you saying you want to come with me? I thought-"  
  
Raoul smiled down at the purple car below him. "I'm not gonna let you go it alone, man. I promised to help you and that's what I'm gonna do. For real, this time!"  
  
Before Steve could offer his thanks, or say anything at all for that matter, he was cut off by a flash of light and the distinct sound of a groundbridge portal opening up!  
  
It took a moment for Steve's optics to adjust to the now green light flooding the cavern, but he managed to get his sight back just in time to see a group of five human's hurry through a portal just behind Raoul, each of them with a weapon drawn and ready to fire.  
  
Humans with a groundbridge? Oh no...  
  
Steve froze up, trying to keep as still as possible so as to look like just a regular car. Unfortunately, Raoul was already in the human soldiers' sight. The one in front, a big, square looking human with darker skin went straight up to Raoul.  
  
"Oh, it's just a kid." He said, looking down at the other human who was staring with wide eyes back at the still spinning portal. The soldier pulled a black box with an antenna off his waist and spoke into it. "False alarm, guys. It's just some random punk who broke into the console."  
  
"Wh-what...? Wait, who are you guys?" Raoul finally spoke up. He took a few cautious steps away with his hands up. "I don't want any trouble, okay?"  
  
Before their leader could respond to Raoul, one of the armored soldiers flanking him spoke up. "Agent Fowler! That vehicle-"  
  
Steve felt a chill run through his tank. For a brief second he considered swerving around and speeding for the exit as fast as the he could, but then he noticed the human wasn't looking at him. He was looking at the green car behind him: the one that Raoul had driven into the mine. As he spotted the car, the human named Fowler's expression suddenly became much harder, and he reached forward grabbing ahold of Raoul's arm so he couldn't back away any farther.  
  
"Oh, so you are with them, huh?" He said glancing around the cave, "Who else is here with you, boy? Where's the rest of your crew?"  
  
Raoul tried to lean away, but Agent Fowler was holding on fast to his arm. The other humans with him had their weapons primed and were moving forward, looking cautiously around the dark cave.  
  
"I-I don't know what you're talking about, man!" Raoul insisted. He dared a glance over at Steve, probably looking for some sort of help. Unfortunately, Fowler seemed to notice, and signaled the other humans to move in on Steve.  
  
As the humans jumped off the platform and started towards Steve, Raoul was now being dragged away towards the portal.  
  
"We'll see about that once you're back at the base, son." Fowler reached onto his belt and pulled out a pair of shiny cuffs. "And I suggest you come quietly. You're in enough trouble as it is."  
  
Steve was still frozen in place, even though the humans were closing in on him, he was doing his absolute best to just sit still and look like a regular car... but he couldn't let this happen. Raoul had come back for him. He had even promised to help Steve find another mine so they could contact the Decepticons. Raoul was his team mate now. There was no way he was going to let him be captured.  
  
Before Fowler had a chance to reach forward and put the restraints on Raoul, Steve revved his engine as loud as he could, and took off for the platform the humans were standing on. The others had to dive out of his way so as to not get hit, but he wasn't interested in them so he let them escape. Just as he was about to reach the edge of the platform, he transformed back into his robot mode with his blaster at the ready, and took aim.  
  
"Let him go! Now!"  
  
Agent Fowler's expression went from stern to some mixture of shock and dumbfounded, and he immediately dropped his grip on Raoul, holding his hands up in surrender. Once he was free, Raoul sprinted across the platform towards Steve.  
  
"Whoa, hang on a second!" Fowler called out, taking a step forward, "You're a Decepticon, right? I think there's been a misunderstanding. Just let me explain-"  
  
"Don't listen to this chump, Steve! Let's get outta here!"  
  
Raoul was right: Steve wasn't interested in anything this human had to say, he already knew who he was working with. In one fluid motion, Steve scooped up Raoul into his servos, turned towards the exit, and transformed, then went speeding off towards the exit. The humans didn't fire after him, but just as he made it out of the cavern, he definitely heard the Fowler human requesting backup on his communication device.  
  
"Steve, what the hell- Who were those guys?" Raoul was glancing out the back window as they drove through the cave tunnel towards the surface. It didn't look like they were being followed, but Steve had other things on his mind.  
  
"They're... they're with the Autobots. They must have been, they had a groundbridge."  
  
"A what?"  
  
"That portal!" Steve shouted, "It teleports you places, it.. oh slag, the Autobots got the signal that we were in there. They knew where that mine was! What if they've found the others?!"  
  
As he finished this sentence they came blasting out of the tunnel's entrance and into the rocky ravine outside. Steve slammed on his brakes and transformed back into his root mode. Raoul, who had been in his front seat, found himself suddenly being hauled up into the air and was grabbed by Steve and placed on his shoulder. He only had a second to grab onto the mech's plating before he started moving again. Steve hurried forward and started climbing the ravine wall  
  
"I have to get back." Steve said, ignoring Raoul's protest that he slow down. "I have to warn them all- I have to warn Frank! He's in danger!"  
  
Raoul stayed quiet for a moment, then let out a quiet expletive that Steve didn't understand. "Alright, man... I'm not gonna be able to fight off any Autobots, but I wanna go with you!" He said, giving Steve's shoulder a tight squeeze. "Just in case you need me, I wanna be there."  
  
Steve didn't respond immediately. He should probably have been grateful, but at that moment he was too consumed with worry for his friends... Like Rodrigo. There hadn't been any sign of the miners in that mine, or that there had been a fight down there. What had happened to him? What were the Autobots doing with the Vehicons?!  
  
After a few minutes of struggling to get up the steep hill of the ravine, Steve finally made it to the top. Every circuit in his frame was screaming at him to rest for a moment, but he didn't have that time to waste. He had to get back to his own mine to make sure that whatever terrible thing the Autobots had done here, they wouldn't get a chance to do it to the rest of his friends! He picked Raoul up off his shoulder and placed him on the ground so he could transform. Once in his vehicle mode, he popped open his door and Raoul immediately jumped in.  
  
Just as Steve was about to take off down the mountainside, a loud roar was heard from down in the ravine. It sounded like an engine- the Autobots must be coming after them! Realizing he was probably low on time, Steve slammed down his gas pedal and headed for the cover of the trees. He wasn't even able to make it out of the clearing before the source of the noise became apparent: something shiny and silver flew straight up and out of the ravine and into the air above them. It took a moment for Steve to realize that it wasn't a missile or projectile, but an actual jet... but wait. The Autobots didn't have any jets on Earth, right?  
  
He didn't even have time to think about what that might mean before the jet swerved around and headed straight for him! There was nothing Steve could do about it, he wasn't fast enough to get away. All he could do was slam on his brakes as the jet got closer, hoping that whatever it was going to fire at him would miss.  
  
To his surprise, he didn't hear any blaster fire or missiles coming his way. It became apparent why not a moment later when the jet pulled upward suddenly and transformed into what was clearly not an Autobot. It was an Eradicon, in fact- the same frame as Frank, but with a silver paintjob instead.  
  
They glared down at Steve through the optical slit of their black visor and shouted, "What the frag do you think you're doing?!"  
  
It was a good thing Steve didn't have any time to feel relieved that this was not an Autobot, because it would have been gone the instant he recognized their voice, anyway. "AA-00?" He asked, instinctively inching backwards at the name of their superior officer.  
  
They seemed to recognize Steve by his voice as well. "Oh, ST-03. Of course it's you." They said, their wings giving an irritated twitch. "And who exactly gave you permission to leave your mine? Or scan a new alt-mode? What, so you thought you could get away with going on a little joy ride before you had to leave, did you?"  
  
Steve was still somewhat dumbfounded by their sudden appearance, so he wasn't quick to offer a reply. Raoul was still in his driver's seat, though, and he seemed to have something to say. He opened Steve's door and hopped out onto the ground to glare up at AA-00.  
  
"Who's this jerk, Steve?" He demanded, "Are they with the Autobots too?"  
  
At the sight of Raoul, AA-00 visibly drew back in disgust. "Ugh! You're letting one of those things ride in you? That's disgusting..."  
  
"That doesn't answer my question." Raoul snapped, returning the Eradicon's glare.  
  
"Wait, AA-00... something's gone wrong! The mine down there, NTX-19, the Autobots were-"  
  
"What was that about the Autobots?"  
  
Steve didn't recognize that voice. He swerved around to face the ravine again in time to see a massive blue and red mech with an Autobot insignia glowing brightly right in the center of his chassis. A jolt of fear shot through Steve's spark at the sight of it, and instinctively, he transformed out his blasters. Just as he was about to fire on the Autobot, he was stopped when a heavy pede slammed down on his hood.  
  
"Stop that, you idiot!" AA-00 commanded, "Ultra Magnus is with me."  
  
It took Steve a moment for those words to sink in, and even when they did he didn't fully understand them. He hit his reverse to get out from under the Eradicon's weight, and then transformed to stare at them.  
  
"What do you mean with you?" He demanded, "That's an Autobot!"  
  
AA-00 seemed to be growing annoyed with his questions. "Do I look like I don't know that." As they spoke the Autobot, Ultra Magnus, stepped over to their side and looked down at Steve along with them. "Is that why you didn't come back with everyone else? You didn't want to have to cooperate with the scary, Autobots? Well, tough. Things are changing now that the war's over, so get used to it. You'll be seeing a lot more of the Autobots from now on."  
  
"Over?!!" Steve stumbled backwards, suddenly feeling dizzy. He backed up enough to bump into one of the rocks jutting out of the ground, and fell backwards onto it. He just sat there for a moment looking shocked, until Raoul ran up to him, placing a hand on his leg.  
  
"Hey man, you okay?"  
  
"Y-yeah I just..." Steve paused, rubbing the side of his helm, "It's just a lot to take in all of a sudden... a minute ago I thought I was going to die, y'know?"  
  
"Yeah... This is a pretty big 180." Raoul nodded.  
  
While the two of them spoke, at the edge of the ravine, a huffing and puffing Agent Fowler managed to pull himself up and onto the flat ground of the clearing to join all of them. Once he'd pulled in enough breath to speak again, he looked up at Ultra Magnus.  
  
"Everything alright up here, Commander?" He asked.  
  
"Affirmative, Agent Fowler." Magnus replied, "It appears as though this Vehicon did not receive AA-00's initial message, and therefore did not realize the war had ended."  
  
"What message?" Steve asked, "When was there a message?"  
  
"It's was almost a full cycle ago by now." AA-00 huffed, crossing their arms in front of their chassis. "I sent it out to all the mines telling them what had happened and when they could expect to be sent a bridge to return to Cybertron."  
  
Steve leapt to his feet suddenly, "Cybertron?" He shouted, "We're going back to Cybertron?!"  
  
"Yes!" AA-00 snapped, "It was all in my message! If you had stuck around in your mine for long enough you would have heard it."  
  
"I was in my mine until a few sub cycles ago!" Steve insisted, "If I had heard we were going back to Cybertron I wouldn't have left. And... and I've met other Vehicons who left their mines for the same reason; there was no message."  
  
"There was a message." AA-00 looked annoyed again. "I recorded it and had the Autobots broadcast it to the common frequency used by all the mines."  
  
Ultra Magnus, still standing behind AA-00, nodded along with them. "Yes, and we were very careful about using the correct frequency. We used the one catalogued on the Nemesis just to be certain it would reach the mines."  
  
Suddenly AA-00's wings perked up. "Wait..." they slowly turned to face Magnus, "You didn't use the broadcasting system on the Nemesis, did you?"  
  
"...Well, yes. Is that a problem?"  
  
"Oh of all the-!" AA-00 stopped themself in the middle of the exclamation, and leaned forward, pinching their visor between their digits. "The Nemesis is ON CYBERTRON!" They finally said, "If you send a message from another star system it's not going to get here for another decacycle!"  
  
Ultra Magnus didn't say anything, but the massive Autobot did look rather sheepish standing there being yelled at like a sparkling. Steve didn't really get time to appreciate how funny the whole scene looked before AA-00 rounded on him.  
  
"You! Let's go, I've gotta get back to Cybertron and fix this mess." They said, turning to head back towards the ravine.  
  
Back to Cybertron... Steve never thought he'd hear those words spoken so casually ever again.  Now that he'd had a moment to actually absorb what was happening, he was overjoyed! This meant his friends were not only alive, but they were safe back on their own home planet. Of all the possibilities he had prepared himself for at the end of his journey, something this wonderful had never crossed his mind. He was going home!  
  
"Hey... so this worked out, I guess."  
  
Steve looked back down at Raoul as the human spoke. "Guess you didn't need me after all..." He shrugged. "I'm glad for you, Steve."  
  
"Of course I needed you!" Steve knelt down to get closer to his level, "If you hadn't been there to help me, I would have gotten lost, or crashed into even more unsuspecting humans, or... or I might have given up when I found this mine empty." Holding out a single digit to the human, he added, "Thanks Raoul. You saved me."  
  
With a smile, Raoul pulled Steve's servo closer and wrapped his arms around as much as he could of the massive hand. "That just makes us even, I guess."  
  
"UGH. Enough with the feels-fest!" AA-00 was still perched at the edge of the ravine and now glaring back at the pair. "Say goodbye to your pet already, we're in a hurry."  
  
"Oh..." Steve looked from AA-00 back down to Raoul again. "Well, uh... It doesn't have to be goodbye. Maybe you could come with us?"  
  
"NO!"  
  
Steve glanced up at AA-00 in annoyance, but said nothing more. It was Agent Fowler who broke the silence this time, walking up to join Steve and Raoul. "Don't worry, I'm sure we'll work something out. You'll see each other again." He put his hand on Raoul's shoulder, "You ought to come back with me though, son. We've got some questions for you about that car you had down there. And we'll get you caught up on the rules that come along with making friends with a cybertronian."  
  
"There's rules?" Raoul allowed Agent Fowler to lead him away this time. "How many humans have made friends with these guys?"  
  
Fowler responded with a quiet chuckle, "Well they're not at the base anymore, but we had quite a cast of characters hanging around for awhile there..."  
  
Steve stood up straight and followed after them. AA-00 continued to shout for them to hurry even as they all started down the side of the ravine back towards the mine and the open groundbridge within. Steve was barely listening to them, though. There were a million thoughts running through his processor. He was really going back to Cybertron. He'd never even dared to dream about this day coming, but now it was happening. There were so many possibilities open now that they had their planet back- it could mean so many different things! It wouldn't be the same as it was before the war, but that might not be a bad thing. As Steve was walking down the cavern entrance into the empty mine, he honestly wasn't sure what he would think of the new Cybertron. The only thing he could definitively say was that he was excited, and he was ready to see whatever it had in store for him!


End file.
